Shiver (3 page)

In his bedroom, up in the tower, Charles glanced at his computer screen. It was switched on, but he hadn't been near it in hours. He sometimes liked playing computer games, or downloading music from the internet onto his iPod. One of the games he played followed the adventures of a boy trapped in a haunted house, who had to find his way out of a maze of passageways. Like all computer games, it was repetitive and unsatisfying in the end, but he liked it and played it obsessively, to the point where it almost became a fixation. He was also trying to write his ghost story for school, but it wasn't going very well. Fiona had put him off with her comments.

It could be so boring in the school holidays with no one but his brother and sister to hang about with … apart from Samuel. Fiona had taken to him and the two were as thick as thieves. Part of him envied his sister for having a friend she could confide in. Charles was a loner. He didn't confess his secrets to anyone. Not even to his brother, Seb, who had the room next door.

He stared out of the window at the grounds and garden below, turning when he heard a light tapping noise on the keyboard behind him. On the blank computer screen had appeared one sinister little word.

That was strange. He moved closer, peered at the screen, then pressed the delete button. It was an instinctive reaction – an attempt to remove the evidence, erase it. Words didn't appear of their own accord like that. Had he been typing earlier and left something on the screen? A computer could hardly produce text all by itself, no matter how amazing modern technology might be.

“That's weird,” he said to himself. His voice sounded uncannily loud in the silence of the enclosed space. His room was quite small, without much furniture in it, apart from a bed, the computer desk, a bookcase and a wardrobe. He liked it this spartan. He didn't need much.

On an impulse he sat down on the chair, and typed in the words:

“Stupid,” he muttered out loud. He pressed the delete button again, and watched the sentence disappear, swallowed up by the cursor.

Then he swivelled about on his chair and wrote a fresh sentence, beginning with the title of his story.

He liked that. He'd made a start. Now – he stared thoughtfully at the window – he needed an atmospheric
sentence to begin with: something that would make readers' spines tingle.

Too wordy?
he wondered.

Oh, it's not too bad
, he told himself.
In fact, it's fairly promising
.

He turned back to the computer screen, his fingers on the keyboard, but his cheeks suddenly drained of colour. From out of the screen drifted a face, its features assembling themselves before his eyes as if from smoke.

He blinked his eyes.

Was he imagining things? He shook his head to clear it of any fuzz. The face slowly faded out again, as if it had never been there.

How could that be? He reached out a hand and touched the computer screen. Smooth and cold to the touch, like porcelain. Nothing there. An electric buzz emerging from the back of it. That was all.

Surely writing a ghost story couldn't summon up a real ghost, could it? That was absurd. Completely bizarre. I
mean, I know my English teachers tell me to use my imagination
, he thought,
but this is taking it a bit far
.

“If this is some kind of joke,” he muttered, “then it's not very funny.” There was no way he could carry on writing his ghost story now.

He made for the door and bolted downstairs.

After he'd gone, the empty room seemed to let out a faint
exhalation that was almost a sigh. A shady figure emerged, hovering near the window. It drifted slowly towards the computer and blew onto the screen. The opening lines of Charles's ghost story vanished from sight.

Charles found the others in the kitchen.

“Where's Mum?” he asked.

“Gone shopping,” Fiona told him. “With Isabel. House to ourselves.”

“Oh!”

“What's up?”

“Nothing,” he mumbled.

“Charles, you're white as a sheet,” she persisted. “What is it?”

“You've not been trying to write your ghost story again, have you?” Sebastian teased him.

“How did you know?” he snapped, glancing quickly in Fiona's direction. For a brief moment Charles wondered if his brother had had anything to do with the hazy face he'd seen drift from the screen when he was writing. Perhaps Sebastian had done something to his computer? He was a bit of a technical whizkid.
Yes, perhaps that was it
, he thought.
It was just some kind of elaborate hoax
.

“Wait till you hear what we've found,” Fiona burst out, not giving Charles time to think about his problem any further.

“What now?” he sighed, taking on his older brother's stance. He slid into a seat next to them at the kitchen table, trying his best to look tolerably bored.

“A secret staircase!” she cried. She nodded her head
furiously. “Honestly! We've found a secret staircase in the library!”

“Fiona, calm down,” Sebastian said.

“But it's true!”

“Have
you
seen it?” Charles asked, looking straight at his brother.

Sebastian shook his head. “Not yet.”

“What did Mum say about it?” he continued.

“She doesn't know yet. Come on. We'll show you.”

Fiona leapt up from the table and began to lead the way past the grandfather clock and up the spiralling staircase. The house waited … and watched. Every unopened door seemed to contain a secret and the clock itself began to chime, its notes resounding as far as the tower itself.

Samuel was a little reluctant to show the other two what they had discovered. He wasn't sure what they would make of it.

In the library, all four children stood before the fireplace.

“And?” Charles said. “Now what?”

“Wait,” Fiona whispered. “Come on, Samuel … help me.” The two of them leant into the back of the fireplace and began to feel around for the loose stone slab. Nothing happened.

Fiona's face fell. “It worked last time … didn't it, Samuel? We pressed this slab here and … maybe we're not pressing it hard enough. How did it work before? Maybe there's a catch …” She felt about desperately with her fingers, eventually slapping the stone with the flat of her palm in frustration.

Charles and Sebastian looked sceptical.

“I told you,” Charles said, leaning back and folding his arms
in satisfaction. “A couple of regular detectives you make. Still, if it keeps you happy, kids.”

Fiona glowered at him. “It's true … isn't it, Samuel? It was right here.”

Samuel nodded. “She's not making it up. I was there. We pressed something and the wall slid back and there was this staircase. It lead up into a passageway.”

Charles and Sebastian were looking at Samuel, half-mocking. His voice trailed away. There was no way they were going to believe him without evidence.

“How can we prove it to you?” Fiona said. “And why won't this thing open?” she cried, slapping it again, hard. Her hand went red with the impact and she shook it in pain. “Ouch!”

“So,” Charles said. “Where do you think this secret passageway leads?” He hid his curiosity beneath a thin layer of sarcasm.

Samuel looked him straight in the eye. “Up to the tower, I think. Somewhere near your room.”

Charles blanched all of a sudden.

A secret staircase and passageway, leading to his own bedroom? First, a smoky face drifting out of his computer screen, now this?
He was beginning to feel unnerved.

“What's up?” Sebastian asked him.

“You've not been messing about with my computer, have you?” Charles asked his brother, point-blank.

“No. Why would I do that?”

Charles searched Sebastian's face. He didn't know whether to believe him or not.

Fiona and Samuel were still investigating the back of the stone fireplace, apparently unable to accept that it wasn't
responding to their efforts this time. Charles sighed. Perhaps there
was
a secret passageway, lurking at the back there somewhere. His mother was right. This
had
always been a strange house to live in.

“It's all very well for Mr MacFarlane down at the Lynns Farm, or the landlord at the Sheriffmuir Inn, to tell stories,” his mother had often said in the past, “but we have to get on with things. This is our home.”

Exactly
, thought Charles.
We have to get on with things
.

“Well, I wouldn't rush to tell Mum about your non-existent discovery just yet,” he said sarcastically, as he headed reluctantly back up the stairs to his room, leaving the others to their own devices. He had made up his mind. It was time he got back to his computer once and for all, and if a face materialized in front of him this time, he'd deal with it. He'd unplug the wretched thing and demand to know what Sebastian had been doing to it.

Up in his bedroom everything was just as he had left it. But the opening sentence of his ghost story had been deleted. He pressed the cursor once or twice, to scroll down the page, but there was nothing there.
Oh well, he'd just have to start again
. He was beginning to feel in the mood this time. All this talk of secret staircases had given him a few ideas.

It was Saturday night, and in the drawing room a bright fire burned in the large stone fireplace. Chris Morton and Isabel had come back from their shopping expedition, tired and weary. At least now the larder and fridge at the cottage were well-stocked.
No more beans on toast for a while
, Samuel thought. He and Fiona had been thinking about the secret staircase they’d found, and wondering why it hadn’t opened a second time. It was so frustrating. The others simply wouldn’t believe them, but there was nothing they could do to convince them. And Charles had been right … there was no point in telling their mothers just yet.

Mr Hughes wheezed as he dropped more logs into the huge basket beside the hearth.

“Thank you, Jim,” Chris Morton smiled. “That’ll keep us going.”

“Aye, you’ll need it alright,” he murmured. “It’s going to be a cold one.”

“Help yourself to a whisky in the kitchen when you’re done,” Mrs Morton added. There was no fear of Mr Hughes forgetting to do that. He liked a glass of malt at the end of the day and there was no crime in that, he mused – although Mrs Hughes might have something different to say on the subject.

“When’s your mother coming over, Samuel?” Mrs Morton asked, glancing in his direction.

“Soon. When she’s finished in the studio, I think.”

Isabel had dived into the studio after tea to try and do a bit more work on her wooden sculpture and to tidy up the clutter from the day before. She could never keep away from her work for long.

Fiona was sitting at the piano, looking bored and fidgety, running her fingers along its closed lid.

“Fiona … rather than playing it like that,” her mother said sarcastically, “you could actually open the piano and try playing it properly! At least it would make me feel all those expensive lessons have been worth it.”

“Can’t be bothered,” Fiona said, and sloped off to join Samuel in the window seat.

“Now you’re just
trying
to be difficult.” Chris Morton rolled her eyes and wondered for the hundredth time what she had done wrong, and what on earth she would have done without the support of her new friend, Isabel Cunningham. She had been unsure about Samuel’s influence on her daughter at first, but he’d grown on her. Besides, Fiona seemed to like him and the two were almost inseparable. All she wanted was harmony within her family, without all the tensions and conflicts that had been brewing since Samuel arrived. She was aware that Charles, in particular, disliked Samuel. Had she made the right decision, she wondered, encouraging them to live here?

But it was better than being alone on Sheriffmuir, wasn’t it
?

The old house seemed to creak and groan around them with some deep buried awareness.

Charles appeared in the doorway, looking agitated. She recognised that look; it meant that something was bothering him … but, of course, being Charles, he wouldn’t admit it.

“What have you been up to?” his mother asked.

“Nothing.”

“Working on his story, probably,” Fiona said.

“What story’s that?”

“Just a ghost story,” Charles cut in, sheepishly.

“What’s it called?” his mother persisted.

He hesitated. “I thought I might call it
Shiver
.”

“Oh.” She wrinkled her nose slightly. “Sounds promising. I’m impressed, Charles. Just hope it doesn’t give us all the shivers. We have enough of those already. Come and get warm,” she coaxed.

It was a tradition that on Saturday nights the family would gather by the fireside. The two older boys seemed reluctant to join in nowadays, but their mother still insisted on it. It was a way of keeping the family together.

In the window seat, Fiona glanced down at Samuel’s notepad. He was always sketching and drawing. At every available opportunity he would take out his pencil, sharpen it to a precise point and conjure up an image with a few sharp lines.

“What’s that?” she whispered, tilting her head to one side.

He turned the pad to show her. It was a cross-section sketch of the fireplace in the library next door, with the back of it removed to reveal the secret staircase they’d found lying behind it. Fiona nodded, but said nothing.

“Your mother’s taking her time,” Mrs Morton commented.

Samuel instinctively covered his drawing with one hand and glanced out of the window into the darkness.

“Perhaps I’d better fetch her,” he said, although he made no move to do so.

The moor had been swallowed up by the night. Outside the tall trees in front of the house were shapeless masses, teased by
the wind. His mother would be in her little workshop in the old barn, clattering about, trying to organize the mess that was her studio. She was never really aware of what was going on around her when she was in that place. He wouldn’t like to be out there now, in the dark with no lights on. She’d have her torch with her, of course, so why was he worrying anyway?
She was big enough to look after herself
, Samuel told himself,
and she was perfectly safe. There was nothing on this moor to be afraid of
.

“Ah, that’s her now, I think,” Mrs Morton said, hearing footsteps below. Suddenly there was a dull smashing noise downstairs. They all looked at each other.

“Are you alright?” Chris called, moving towards the door.

They waited to hear Isabel cry out, “Oh yes, I’m fine. Sorry about that. I tripped and crashed into something.”

But Chris Morton’s call was met with silence.

They all went out onto the landing, expecting to see Isabel below, but there didn’t seem to be anyone there. At the bottom of the staircase was a broken vase, shattered into several pieces on the hardwood flooring. Mrs Morton went down and picked up the broken shards in her fingers.

“That’s strange,” she said. “How did that happen?”

“I think I’ll just go and check on Mum,” Samuel said. Something made him want to reassure himself that she was safe.

“I’ll come with you,” Fiona began.

“No.” Samuel rounded on her more sharply than he’d intended. “You stay here. It’s cold outside.”

Out in the courtyard he could see a light in the barn. His mother must still be inside. He went closer and pushed the heavy door open.

“Samuel?” She turned and looked at him, smiling. He sighed with relief. She looked as right as rain. Why had he feared that something terrible might have happened? He was being silly. One broken vase did not amount to anything serious.

“Everyone’s waiting for you upstairs,” he told her. “Chris was hoping you’d come over.”

Isabel sighed and scooped a handful of shattered glass into a dustpan.

“Something must have got into the barn earlier,” she muttered.

“What d’you mean?”

“A few things have been broken.”

“Like what?”

“One or two pieces I’d been working on. I hadn’t finished them yet, but there’s no point now.”

Then he realized that broken glass was scrunching under his feet like biscuit crumbs.

“Who would have done that?” he cried, feeling ready to accuse anyone. He could be highly protective of his mother at times.

“Don’t look so alarmed. It was probably a fox maybe, or a mink.”

“That smashed up your work?” he said, incredulously.

Isabel shrugged. “It’s possible. At least my wood carving’s still okay. Come on,” she added, turning her back on the mess. “Let’s go next door. I’m starting to enjoy these evenings together, aren’t you?”

He nodded. “Just so long as Charles isn’t too grumpy.”

“Just ignore him,” she said. “He can’t keep it up forever. No one can. And Sebastian’s alright with you now, isn’t he?”

“Suppose.”

“There you are, then.”

They walked out into the cold night, shutting the door of the barn behind them.

Isabel turned up in the drawing room wearing her scruffy overalls and a big knitted grey cardigan that was one or two sizes too big for her. No one seemed to mind. They were all very comfortable with each other by now.

“All quiet on the Western Front?” Mrs Morton asked her cheerfully, by way of a greeting. It was a phrase she used a lot, although her children didn’t really know what it meant.

“Oh, is that for me?” Isabel said, helping herself to a glass of red wine on the coffee table. “Just what the doctor ordered.”

“What’s this?” she added then, noticing the remains of a delicate porcelain vase lying on the sofa beside Chris Morton.

“It fell and broke just a few minutes ago, at the bottom of the stairs. No one was near it or anything.”

“How odd.”

“Mmm.” Chris Morton seemed to dismiss it from her mind as she said, “Come and join us. Jim has filled the basket to the brim and I’ve decided I’m going to toast myself tonight.” She stretched her feet towards the flames.

“Toast! Now there’s an idea,” Fiona cried.

“Go on then … But organize it yourself,” her mother threw over her shoulder. “I’m too tired to move. And someone call Sebastian, will you?”

“Come on, Samuel,” Fiona said, and pulled him after her.

Down in the kitchen Fiona flung open the fridge and searched for the butter dish, then grabbed a loaf from the bread bin.

When the fridge door slammed shut, Samuel was looking at her.

“What’s up?” she asked. He was looking preoccupied and worried.

“My mum’s studio was wrecked. Some of her things were broken … a couple of new pieces she’s been working on. She’s not too bothered and thought it might have been a fox or something …”

“I wonder what it was?”

“Who knows.”

“You don’t think it was Sebastian, do you?” Fiona exclaimed.

“Why him?”

She shrugged. “Well, he’s the only one who wasn’t in the drawing room at the time. And you heard what Charles said to him about his computer … asked him if he’d been messing about with it.”

“But why would he do that?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m just trying to find some rational explanation.”

They moved about the big kitchen, collecting the things they needed.

“Unless …” Samuel hesitated “… it was something else.”

“Meaning what?” But Samuel was already heading back up the stairs and did not reply.

Upstairs, the two women were comfortably ensconced in armchairs either side of the huge fireplace, engaged in adult talk.

“And then what did he say?” Mrs Morton was asking, all
concerned.

“Oh, it’s all such a long time ago now … What does any of it matter?” Isabel quickly changed the subject when she saw her son enter the room. Samuel was used to this. His mother often had intimate conversations with other women about “the past,” which were instantly cut off as soon as he reappeared.

Fiona knelt down on the rug with the loaf before her.

“Where’s Sebastian?” her mother said. “Hasn’t he come down yet? Charles, go and call him, will you?”

Charles went to the landing and called his brother’s name.

Fiona fixed a slice of bread to the toasting fork and held it out to the flames. So began the ritual. Hot butter melted off the slices of toast and dribbled onto their fingers. Once Sebastian had joined them as well, it would have looked a comfortable scene to any outsider. Two adults and four children gathered beside a roaring blaze, making toast, their faces bathed in orange firelight while the rest of the room around them remained mostly dark. A winter scene. A cosy scene. But one which hid an uncomfortable truth and lots of dark secrets.
Charles held out the toasting fork to Samuel in a rare show of friendship. Samuel hesitated, then took it.

“Do you ever miss your old friends in Edinburgh?” Charles asked him unexpectedly.

Samuel nodded. “Sometimes. I still keep in touch, by email and things.”

Isabel had overheard them and interrupted. “We’re going to have one of them to stay one of these days, aren’t we, Samuel? If I can ever get myself organized enough.”

“Yeah. They wouldn’t believe all this. But I miss the city
sometimes,” he added.

“There must have been lots to do,” Charles said quietly, as if he was trying to imagine a different life for himself.

“There’s lots to do here, as well,” Samuel said.

“It’s hard, making new friends,” Charles murmured, as the conversation of the adults faded out again.

“Tell me about it,” Samuel said wistfully.

The hours ticked by and the fire burned low in the grate. Granny and Mr Hughes had left some time ago, leaving the kitchen scrupulously tidy and the tea towels hanging up to dry. Granny, despite her complaints, was like a ministering angel, leaving cleanliness and warmth in her wake. Isabel was falling asleep in one of the armchairs, wrapped in a plaid blanket, her feet curled beneath her. Chris Morton was gazing into the fire, thoughtfully, looking relaxed in the company around her. On the walls, portraits of former Morton ancestors – people who had owned this house in the dark and distant past – stared down at the group clustered by the hearth. They seemed to be judging, offering opinions, while at the same time withholding comment. Samuel liked these portraits, even though they also unnerved him. Dark probing eyes followed him about the room. He liked the sense of history, of things having happened here before: mysterious things; dark and secretive things. The weight of its history could also be oppressive. The Morton children certainly found it to be so at times.

Down below the grandfather clock began to chime midnight.

“The witching hour,” Chris Morton murmured. “Time for my beauty sleep.”

Isabel raised her head, looking bemused.

“Where am I?” she mumbled.

“You’re next door, Mum.”

“Of course. That means I’ve got to go out into the cold,” she groaned.

“Never mind, Isabel,” Fiona said. “You’ve got your son to help you,” and she nudged Samuel playfully.
As the great room emptied itself, eyes watched them from the shadows. Fiona was nervous, thinking about the secret staircase they’d found. She was sure she’d seen something earlier out the corner of her eye, after they’d emerged from the gloomy exit hole in the fireplace: a swift, dark shape. Where had the passageway led and why did it suddenly stop? Why had it been blocked off? What was it hiding? And who or what had broken the vase in the hallway downstairs? Was the same person responsible for wrecking Isabel’s studio?